Korea’s SM Entertainment Ends Deal With Lee Soo-man, Group Founder and King of K-Pop

variety.com:

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief SM Entertainment, one of the leading agency groups in Korean entertainment, said Friday that it will terminate a contract with Lee Soo-man, a year early, at the end of 2022. “SM Entertainment [..] will sever ties with its chief producer Lee Soo-man at the end of this year,” Yonhap news agency reported on Friday.

Lee was one of the key figures in the early discovery of Korean pop talent in the mid-1990s, developing the agency system that has hatched numerous idol groups, and has remained one of the biggest executive names in the K-pop business.

The four leading agencies are brand names in their own right, organize concerts for their stables of performers, and maintain a far more visible presence than music management firms in most other countries.

Lee has been behind the success of acts including BoA, TVXQ, Girls Generation, Shinee, EXO, Super Junior, NCT and aespa. SM Entertainment’s board of directors said Friday that it would bring to an early end a deal with Like Planning, a music production company that is wholly owned by Lee.